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Topic: Laying worker trouble!!! (Read 4607 times)

OK it looks like the mystery of this troublesome hive has been solved. I have tried to requeen them and that did not work. (they killed the queen in the cage). Finally took some photos and blew them up on the computer. Multiple eggs, not in the center and not in the bottom of the cell.

Laying worker!!!! So I will be introducing for about 3 weeks, a frame of open brood every week in the hopes they start to understand that they should make a queen.

OK you got it. I believe the first photo is the best. And open it up as large as you can to see the multiple eggs. When I looked at this frame in the sun, it looked like the eggs were right in the middle and in the bottom of the cell. Only when placed on the computer can you really see the truth that they are not in the middle and not on the bottom.

Good luck, I had this trouble with a hive last year. I finely had to shake them out of the hive in front of my other hives forcing them to find a new hive.

Since then I have been doing some thinking.....dangerous. If you put a queen rite hive on top of the hive with the laying workers (double screen between them) would that fool them into believing they two were also queen rite?

Steve

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If, a week after the 3rd frame is installed and you still see no sighs of queens cells it is time to shake out the hive and install another frame of brood, after that do a combine with the laying worker hive above.

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If, a week after the 3rd frame is installed and you still see no sighs of queens cells it is time to shake out the hive and install another frame of brood, after that do a combine with the laying worker hive above.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying Brian. OK I understand the first part about waiting up to 4 weeks after introducing the open brood, but then when you say shake out the hive, do you mean shake them out far away from the original location and then place the hive back in the original location. I have heard this before that the nurse bees will end up on the ground and cannot find their way home, while the foragers will return to the original hive.

I have combined and gotten away with it, but I've also seen it end up queenless. I've never seen a shake out resolve the problem. The two sure methods are to move all the equipment and shake them all out on the ground and give the equipment to other hives. The bees will drift. Or a frame of brood every week for three weeks. Everything else is iffy.

The further away you can shake out the hive the better, in the city it might have to be done in the front yard when bees are in the back yard. At my place I'd shake them out down by the barn which is close to 100 yards away from the bee yard.

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Life is a school. What have you learned? :brian: The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

The further away you can shake out the hive the better, in the city it might have to be done in the front yard when bees are in the back yard. At my place I'd shake them out down by the barn which is close to 100 yards away from the bee yard.

OK Brian, Thanks also for the info. Hopefully I will not get to this point.